A&O gets arty: a hymn for your wall. An interpretation of Bowie’s “Heroes” by German artist Ralf Brög.

1981. We are at the movies, third row. The intention of the film was to keep us away from hard drugs but what we saw was the quest for the big adventure or escape. Including it’s failure. In the big, neon coloured upgrade of our own small town desolation. Watching the group run through Berlin at night with Bowie singing Heroes/Helden our pulse went up immediately. There was some life burning down from the screen right there in front of us. Who gave a fuck about the consequences, about the hangover of the day after, it was about the here and now ! We were like those guys on the screen. Heroes – even if just for one day. Bowies critical distance in his song, the lovers, the Berlin wall and the war, it did not matter to us.

“We can be Heroes,

just for one day,

we can be us,

just for one day”

Heroes/Helden was an anthem for the youth of the night, for all of those that thought differently, that were different. For us. All of the fascination and attraction that Berlin with it’s “Risiko”, the “SO36″ and “Dschungel” meant to us Punks from Western Germany were attached to Heroes/Helden. The pictures of “Christiane F.” had burnt deep into our minds, also because reality was quite like that and due to the omnipresent soundtrack that would not leave our heads.

,„Niemand gibt uns eine Chance,

Doch wir können siegen,

für immer und immer,

und wir sind dann Helden,

für einen Tag“

In the course of the years the song was covered like hell, ruined, misused for commercials and still stands there unharmed. It is still true, it still works. The record collected a few scratches in this time, scars of life. You can see them if you come close. Good.

Ralf Brög makes this musik visible to us. Every sound, every word, every tiny bit of information that was originally pressed into vinyl is right there. Acoustics translated into a new, visual dimension. The reproduction of the analogue record groove compresses memories and emotions. All of the songs meaning in a single winding line. The sound becomes recognisable on a two-dimensional and structured level and by that transcends the acoustic perception. There is no interpretation. The music is being transformed from one medium to another. Subtle, abstract, encoded but very close to the original.